English 10 Literature Lesson #19 Mr. Rinka

1. English 10 Literature Lesson #19Mr. Rinka Amy Tan Biography Joy Luck Club Summary

2. Amy Tan Biographyhttp://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0bio-1 Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California, on February 19, 1952. Her family lived in several communities in Northern California before settling in Santa Clara. Both of her parents were Chinese immigrants. Her father, John Tan, was an electrical engineer and Baptist minister who came to America to escape the turmoil of the

3. Amy Tan Biographyhttp://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0bio-1 Chinese Civil War. The harrowing early life of her mother, Daisy, inspired Amy Tan's novel The Kitchen God's Wife. In China, Daisy had divorced an abusive husband but lost custody of her three daughters. She was forced to leave them behind when she escaped on the last boat to leave Shanghai before the Communist takeover in 1949. Her marriage to John Tan

4. Amy Tan Biographyhttp://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0bio-1 produced three children, Amy and her two brothers. Tragedy struck the Tan family when Amy's father and oldest brother both died of brain tumors within a year of each other. Mrs. Tan moved her surviving children to Switzerland, where Amy finished high school, but by this time mother and daughter were in constant conflict. Mother and daughter did not speak for

5. six months after Amy Tan left the Baptist college her mother had selected for her to Follow her boyfriend to San Jose City College. Tan further defied her mother by abandoning the pre-med course her mother had urged to pursue the study of English and linguistics. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in these fields at San Jose State University. In 1974, she and her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei were

6. married. They were later to settle in San Francisco. DeMattei, an attorney, took up the practice of tax law, while Tan studied for a doctorate in linguistics, first at the University of California at Santa Cruz, later at Berkeley. By this time, she had developed an interest in the problems of the developmentally disabled. She left the doctoral program in 1976 and took a job

7. as a language development consultant to the Alameda County Association for Retarded Citizens and later directed a training project for developmentally disabled children. With a partner, she started a business writing firm, providing speeches for salesmen and executives for large corporations. After a dispute with her partner, who believed she should give up

8. writing to concentrate on the managing side of the business, she became a full- time freelance writer. Among her business works, written under non-Chinese- sounding pseudonyms, were a 26-chapter booklet called "Telecommunications and You," produced for IBM. Amy Tan prospered as a business writer. After a few years in business for herself, she had saved enough money to buy a house

9. for her mother. She and her husband lived well on their double income, but the harder Tan worked at her business, the more dissatisfied she became. The work had become a compulsive habit and she sought relief in creative efforts. She studied piano, hoping to channel the musical training forced on her by her parents in childhood into a more personal expression. She also began to write fiction.

10. Her first story "Endgame," won her admission to the Squaw Valley writer's workshop taught by novelist Oakley Hall. The story appeared in FM, literary magazine, and was reprinted in Seventeen. A literary agent, Sandra Dijkstra, was impressed enough with Tan's second story "Waiting Between the Trees," to take her on as a client. Dijkstra encouraged Tan to complete an entire

11. volume of stories. Just as she was embarking on this new career, Tan's mother fell ill. Amy Tan promised herself that if her mother recovered, she would take her to China, to see the daughter who had been left behind almost forty years before. Mrs. Tan regained her health and mother and daughter departed for China in 1987. The trip was a revelation for Tan. It gave her a

12. new perspective on her often-difficult relationship with her mother, and inspired her to complete the book of stories she had promised her agent. On the basis of the completed chapters and a synopsis of the others, Dijkstra found a publisher for the book, now called The Joy Luck Club. With a $50,000 advance from G.P. Putnam's Sons, Tan quit business writing and finished her book in a little

13. more than four months. Upon its publication in 1989, Tan's book won enthusiastic reviews and spent eight months on The New York Times bestseller list. The paperback rights sold for $1.23 million. The book has been translated into 17 languages, including Chinese. Her subsequent novel, The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), confirmed her reputation and enjoyed excellent sales. Since then, Amy

14. Tan has published two books for children, The Moon Lady and The Sagwa, and three novels The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001) and Saving Fish from Drowning (2005). In 2003, she published The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings, an autobiography in which she disclosed her experience with Lyme disease, a chronic bacterial infection contracted from the bite of a common

15. tick. Amy Tan's case went undiagnosed for years before she received proper treatment, and she suffered intense physical pain, mental impairment and seizures. For years, Lyme disease made it impossible for Amy Tan to continue writing. With medication, she has been able to control the worst symptoms of her illness, and has resumed writing, but she now spends much of her energy raising

16. awareness of Lyme disease, promoting its early detection and treatment, and advocating for the rights of Lyme disease patients. http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/events/choice/2008/11/LITERATURE-Amy-Tan-11-19/uploads/articles/7223-choice_lit-amytan_111208.jpg

17. The Joy Luck Clubhttp://www.shmoop.com/joy-luck-club/summary.html What follows is a brief summary of the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

18. The novel opens after the death of Suyuan Woo, an elderly Chinese woman and the founding member of the Joy Luck Club. Suyuan has died without fulfilling her "long-cherished wish": to be reunited with her twin daughters who were lost in China. Suyuan’s American- born daughter, Jing-mei (June) Woo, is asked to replace her mother at the Joy Luck Club’s meetings.

19. At the first meeting, Jing-mei learns that her long-lost half-sisters have been found alive and well in China. The other three elderly members of the Club – her mother’s best friends and Jing-mei’s "aunties" – give Jing-mei enough money to travel to China and meet her sisters. Essentially, Jing-mei has the opportunity to fulfill her mother’s greatest wish. Jing- mei’saunties assign her the task of

20. telling her twin sisters about the mother they never knew. The only problem is, Jing-mei feels like she never really knew her own mother. This simple premise allows the book to cast a much wider net, as it raises the question of how well daughters know their mothers. The other three members of the Joy Luck Club – Ying-ying, Lindo, and An-mei – all have wisdom that they

21. wish to impart to their independent, American daughters. However, their daughters – Lena, Waverly, and Rose – all have their own perspectives on life as Americans. This gives the book a total of eight perspectives and life stories to draw from. The novel is comprised of sixteen chapters, with each woman (with the exception of Suyuan) getting two chapters with which to tell her story.

22. At the end of the book, Jing-mei flies to China to meet her half sisters. She is extremely apprehensive about meeting them. When the sisters do meet for the first time, they instantly hug and cry. Jing-mei’smother’s wish has been fulfilled, and through the process, Jing- meifeels that she has come closer to her mother.

23. Characters in The Joy Luck Clubhttp://www.neabigread.org/books/joyluckclub/readers02.php Mothers Suyuan Woo An-Mei Hsu Kindo Jong Yin-yingSt.Clair Daughters Jing-mei “June” Woo Rose Hsu Jordan Waverly Jong Lena St. Clair

24. Suyuan Woo - Mother Suyuan's story is told through her daughter. She was forced to leave her twin babies on the road in China while fleeing the Japanese invasion.

25. Jing-mei “June” Woo - Daughter June is a sensitive child whose mother wants her to become a piano prodigy. After learning the truth about her mother's past, she travels to China to find her lost sisters.

26. An-mei Hsu- Mother At age nine, An-mei joins her widowed mother, who is exiled as a rich man's fourth wife. Her mother commits suicide. In the U.S., An-mei questions her faith when her youngest son drowns.

27. Rose Hsu Jordan- Daughter Timid Rose is overwhelmed by American choices, but she finds conviction in the midst of a bewildering divorce.

28. Lindo Jong - Mother As a child, Lindo outwits her mother-in-law to escape her arranged marriage. Later, she brags about her American-born daughter but also longs for Waverly to notice their similarities.

29. Waverly Jong - Daughter A chess champion as a child, Waverly grows up to become a successful tax attorney. She worries about her mother's opinion of her white fiancé.

30. Ying-yingSt.Clair - Mother When her philandering husband dies, Ying-ying leaves her wealthy family and starts over as a shop girl. She marries an American merchant and emigrates but suffers from episodes of depression as an adult.

31. Lena St Clair - Daughter Generous Lena shares her mother's powers of intuition but remains powerless to act on them. The prickly division of household expenses reveals the impoverishment of her marriage.

32. Amy Tan Interview http://quietube.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuRO4M6D_Y

33. English 10 Literature Lesson #19Mr. Rinka Amy Tan Biography Joy Luck Club Summary